Sylvia feels especially alive in the natural setting and could never seem to thrive and grow when she lived in the city. Listening to thrushes near her grandmother's farm, her "heart [...] beat fast with pleasure." She is incredibly comfortable in the company of animals, and even more uncomfortable with people. When she first hears the hunter's whistle, she is "horror-stricken" and associates the sound with an "enemy," an impression that makes it clear just...
Sylvia feels especially alive in the natural setting and could never seem to thrive and grow when she lived in the city. Listening to thrushes near her grandmother's farm, her "heart [...] beat fast with pleasure." She is incredibly comfortable in the company of animals, and even more uncomfortable with people. When she first hears the hunter's whistle, she is "horror-stricken" and associates the sound with an "enemy," an impression that makes it clear just how intuitive and accurate she is (the hunter is very much the enemy of the creatures to whom she feels such a kinship).
The comparison of her to several different natural creatures alerts us to her fragility as well as her strength. When the hunter starts to follow her home, "she hung her head as if the stem of it were broken"; here, she is compared to a broken flower, its stem snapped. However, climbing the big pine tree, her "bare feet and fingers [...] pinched and held like bird's claws"; in this scene, she is compared to a bird, another creature that, perhaps, seems fragile but can really be quite strong and tough and resilient. In the end, Sylvia is extremely loyal to the nature she loves so much, and she refuses to give the heron's secret away.
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